ROCK/STAR His first gig was onstage in the London cast of Spring Awakening, and he channeled George Harrison for the Beatles musical Backbeat.

HAPPY-GO-LUCKY "I don't really have a plan for my career," Jamie confesses. He can afford to be easygoing—he's got several films awaiting release, including While We Were Here, in which he romances Kate Bosworth, and the chat-room thriller uwantme2killhim? (He's even cheerful about a high-profile role he lost, in the follow-up to 300, joking, "They said I was too big and too manly for the movie.")

Holliday Grainger

AGE 24

HOMETOWN Manchester, England

HISTORY LESSON She's been working for almost two decades, starting with a British TV show when she was just six. But it's in period pieces that Holliday's made her mark: This year alone, she's played a Renaissance-era Italian (in Showtime's The Borgias) and a pair of nineteenth-century aristocrats—one French (in Bel Ami) and one Russian (in November's Anna Karenina). "I guess I have that classic look?" she says.

PIP SQUEAK Holliday's most excited about her role in the upcoming Great Expectations. "Estella's an iconic character, so to play her feels like a personal big break."

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Tye Sheridan

AGE 15

HOMETOWN Palestine, Texas

STAR SEARCH Casting agents scoured his home state for the right actors to appear in last year's artsy indie The Tree of Life. Ten thousand boys auditioned for three parts, one of which went to Tye, who says he'd felt since the second grade that this career was inevitable. "I did a couple of class plays," he explains, "and the teacher told my mom that I was going to be on the big screen one day."

UP NEXT In Mud—which also stars Matthew McConaughey and Reese Witherspoon—Tye plays a teen who helps a mysterious fugitive reunite with his love.

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Zendaya

AGE 16

HOMETOWN Oakland

STAGE RIGHT Zendaya came by her love of performance early, courtesy of her mother's position as a house manager for the California Shakespeare Theater. At age eight, she recalls, "I would beg her to let me come to work with her. I'd pass out programs, sell raffle tickets, whatever I could to be a part of it."

THE MULTITASKER "I like being busy," says the triple threat, who's balancing her day job—a starring role on the Disney Channel series Shake It Up (on which she both plays, and is, a dancer)—with a burgeoning pop career.

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Israel Broussard

AGE 18

HOMETOWN Gulfport, Mississippi

TRUE CRIME In next year's The Bling Ring, written and directed by Sofia Coppola, he costars with Emma Watson as one of the real-life young thieves who robbed a string of celebrities' homes. "Both Emma and Sofia went really out of the box for this one," Israel promises.

RUN THIS TOWN "Acting is what I'm good at, but it's not my passion," he admits. "I'd like to start a production company. I'm always worried about where I'm going to be in a month, and I'd rather just be in charge."

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Alexandra Chando

AGE 26

HOMETOWN Bethlehem, Pennsylvania

SHOW GIRL Alexandra was a college freshman when she booked a role on As the World Turns—she says that the soap, which she stuck with for three years, provided her with the best possible education for her chosen career: "I learned things, like how to find your light, that you can't learn in class. And I can memorize lines so quickly now."

SEEING DOUBLE That skill comes in handy on her current series, The Lying Game, in which she stars as the separated-at-birth twins Sutton and Emma. Playing two characters "is a challenge—I work fifteen hours a day, every day, when we're filming—but I love it."

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Austin Butler

AGE 21

HOMETOWN Anaheim, California

MR. BIG In the upcoming CW series The Carrie Diaries, a prequel of sorts to Sex and the City, Austin's character is "a bit of a bad boy" and grist for the high school rumor mill. "Everyone's gossiping about things that he may or may not have done in the past," he explains.

ROMANTIC LEAD The actor is also a love interest for AnnaSophia Robb's Carrie—a role he plays in real life to girlfriend Vanessa Hudgens. So has his better half offered advice on dealing with fame? "She's told me not to hit the paparazzi, no matter how much I might want to."

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Maika Monroe

AGE 19

HOMETOWN Santa Barbara, California

MAKING WAVES Maika—who's both a world champion kiteboarder and an actress—was training in the Dominican Republic when she was asked to audition for At Any Price. "I got a call," she says, "and two weeks later I was filming. It changed my life."

LOVE INTEREST In the film, she plays Zac Efron's girlfriend. "I expected a lot of hate mail," she admits, "but mostly his fans just want to know what it's like to kiss him." So what is it like? "It's weird! I grew up watching High School Musical, so to actually be making out with him was kind of surreal."

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Isabelle Fuhrman

AGE 15

HOMETOWN Atlanta

THE GOOD GIRL She starred as a villain in her two biggest movies to date, The Hunger Games and 2009's Orphan. So Isabelle is thrilled to be the girl next door in writer-director M. Night Shyamalan's upcoming sci-fi flick, After Earth. "My character is Jaden Smith's character's best friend," she says. After he and his father—played by Will Smith—crash-land their spaceship on Earth, which was abandoned 1,000 years ago, "I'm what he's trying to get back to."

DREAM ROLE "I'd really like to play Audrey Hepburn. I'm a big fan: She's so classy and sophisticated."

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Suraj Sharma

AGE 19

HOMETOWN New Delhi, India

CAST AWAY In Life of Pi, his acting debut, Suraj plays a sixteen year-old shipwrecked at sea, with only a 450-pound Bengal tiger to keep him company. "Mostly," he explains, "I was alone on the boat. They filmed the tigers separately. But I watched them to get a sense of how they move and react to things."

LUCKY BREAK He wasn't even planning to try out for the Ang Lee–directed film, which is already getting Oscar buzz. "My brother auditioned, and I was just waiting for him. But the casting director said, 'Why don't you give it a shot?' I thought I might as well...."

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Willow Shields

AGE 12

HOMETOWN Albuquerque, New Mexico

PRIM AND PROPER A relative newcomer when she was cast as Katniss Everdeen's angelic little sister in The Hunger Games, Willow pretty much disappears into her part. But she'll play a more prominent role in the upcoming installments, Catching Fire and Mockingjay. "I'm really excited to grow up with Prim," she says. "She becomes so wise and very strong."

SISTER ACT Willow's fraternal twin, Autumn, is also an actress. "Whenever we'd go to auditions together, people would tell us, 'Oh, you guys are the new Mary-Kate and Ashley!' It was funny, because we love them."

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Thomas Mann

AGE 20

HOMETOWN Dallas

TRICK OR TREAT This month, the Project X star appears opposite Victoria Justice in the Halloween comedy Fun Size. "I play a guy Victoria's character is friends with at school but would never hang out with," Thomas explains. "It's a 'one crazy night' story."

SPELLBOUND But things get even crazier in his next two movies, the fantasy Beautiful Creatures and the "fun, fast-paced, action-adventure" flick Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters, which also stars Jeremy Renner and Gemma Arterton. "I'm their protégé but also a total fanboy. It was a wild experience."

Alice Englert

AGE 18

HOMETOWN Sydney, Australia

MAGIC ACT In next year's Beautiful Creatures—a big-screen adaptation of the best-selling book—Alice plays Lena, "a girl who has control over the elements" and is persecuted by the "small-minded" residents of her town. "I sort of saw her as the suffragette of the supernatural world," she says. (First, she's a 1960s schoolgirl, with Elle Fanning, in Ginger and Rosa.)

FAMILY BUSINESS Alice's father is a producer, and her mother is the writer-director Jane Campion, so she grew up on film sets. "They were supportive yet also sane, so they warned me that this can be a very hard industry. But they couldn't scare me off!"

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Entertainment

Cirque Du Chic: Young Hollywood 2012

All the world's a stage for this troupe of the hottest stars on the rise. Meet Young Hollywood's talented elite.